


Bedtime Tales

by rainer76



Category: Fringe
Genre: Gen, Mentions of Ella, references to season one ep "The No-Brainer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-07
Updated: 2011-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-21 03:31:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/rainer76
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two women talk in a bar.  Post season 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bedtime Tales

The pub’s rowdy with the Thursday night crowd, Olivia pushes to the front, whistles sharply to gain the bartender’s attention. “Neat whiskey plus one coffee.”

He makes a face. “Cup?”

“In a mug.” Olivia stretches the kinks from her neck and turns around, back braced against the mahogany bar as she surveys the patrons, it’s been three months since their universes were linked, but it’s the first occasion Olivia’s been invited onto their soil. Her ‘sister’ approaches, drowning the whiskey and calling for another shot as Olivia grimaces. They work well together, even if FBI’s a little grim; they tracked a runner in less than a week, some scientist who discovered a more stable world on the other side of the bridge and pulled a Michael Johnson act. Olivia bumps FBI with her hip, motions towards an empty booth. “I saved your life,” Olivia boasts when they’re seated.

FBI studies her. “And the price?”

“Twenty questions.” They don’t talk about their personal lives, a near itch under Olivia’s skin because she wants to know where the branches occurred, how much of the other woman’s stillness is nature versus nurture.

FBI shrugs. “Go on.”

“You have a sweetheart?” It’s an innocuous question. Frank proposed last week, a shiny new ring sits on Olivia’s dressing table, she doesn’t wear it to work for the same reason FBI doesn’t talk about her personal life; they’re both trying to maintain the illusion of uniqueness, but Olivia just blew the head off one of _her _citizens today, saving this double, and she’s owed a little curiosity.__

FBI rubs a thumb along her jaw line. “Maybe,” she hedges.

“Lincoln?” Olivia tries to hide her smile.

The other woman startles, eyes darting up. “You?”

“No, he’s too much like a puppy underfoot for my tastes.” Olivia prefers Frank’s steadiness to Lincoln’s crush, but it’s a relief knowing they have separate taste in men; it’s a relief knowing she’s capable of loving more than one person period, that she has the ability inside of her.

The waiter drops another whiskey on the table. FBI turns the glass over in her hand and muses. “He’s not very puppyish over here.”

“I noticed.” Horn-rimmed glasses and buttoned up, Lincoln Lee larger than life, Olivia’s dying to take a photo of him just so she can tease his double mercilessly. “You make a cute couple,” Olivia offers, already disinterested. FBI leans into her booth, her expression flat. Olivia motions toward her glass, “A toast then, a hokey night with a hokey sentiment, here’s to love.”

“Here’s to being able to find it at all,” FBI returns, and hokey sentiment or not, Olivia will drink to that. Olivia picks up FBI’s wallet, thumbing through the contents as the other woman watches. There are plastic cards everywhere, credit cards, ATM cards, discount cards, they haven’t developed a ShowMe system of their own and Olivia doesn’t carry cash. There are photographs in the rear pocket, the first is of a little girl with dirty blonde hair, she has Rachel’s chin, Rachel’s eyes, and she couldn’t be more than seven years old, her limbs coltish, rail thin. Olivia feels her throat constrict. Uninhibited, the child’s laughing into the camera, she has the frank confidence of a girl who’s never known a heavy hand.

“Ella,” FBI supplies. There’s grief in the name, in the way FBI’s fingers curl inward, dragging against wood.

She’s beautiful, Olivia thinks. The worst thing about the assignment isn’t consorting with the enemy; it’s being flooded with a constant echo of might-have-beens. This was supposed to be the safe world, the world that got away with it, with breaking into Olivia’s universe and rummaging through their belongings. They don’t suffer the rendered atmosphere, the gravity loss, and the wormholes that tear through scientific doctrine. It’s supposed to be the safe here. If what William Bell (aided by Walter Bishop’s design) actually stole was worth it, Olivia might be able to forgive, but patented designs on phase technology, biogenetics and amber, with _none _of it being used correctly pisses Olivia off. The first time she read the file on how this world used amber in an act of terrorism, Olivia had wanted to follow the Secretary’s advice and destroy the lot of them. She still does to some degree. The girl in the photograph though was a might have been, and Olivia’s worked enough cases to read the catch in FBI’s breathing, to know however Ella died, it wasn’t decent. “The Pattern?” she hazards.__

“No, it had nothing to do with it.” There’s horror in FBI’s voice, disbelief at the ugliness of reality. “It was just some random computer programmer, killing loved ones for revenge…we didn’t track him in time.”

Olivia smoothes her hand over the photograph, the ache a sharp stab-wound to her stomach, she’s been thinking about children lately, whether or not she would have been good with them, whether or not it’s what Frank wants. She tucks the photograph into the wallet, pinches twenty dollars to pay the barman, and stands up, the little girl’s face follows her to the bar, as does the festering wound of FBI’s grief.

 _I would have written you a happy ending if I could, _Olivia thinks.__


End file.
